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Creator:
George Stubbs, 1724–1806
Title:

Sleeping Leopard

Date:
1777
Medium:
Enamel on Wedgwood biscuit earthenware
Dimensions:
4 1/4 x 6 5/8 inches (10.8 x 16.8 cm), Frame: 7 1/4 × 9 1/2 × 1 3/4 inches (18.4 × 24.1 × 4.4 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed and dated in brown paint, lower right: "Geo Stubbs | [...] 1777"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2001.2.209
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B2001.2.209FR
Subject Terms:
animal art | leopard | oval | plants | rocks (landforms) | sleeping
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:21174
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Stubbs was an incessant experimenter always alert to the potential of new technologies. He had long explored painting enamel on copper but this is the first enamel Stubbs ever made on a ceramic support. He formed a close friendship with the potter and industrialist Josiah Wedgwood who was developing new techniques for the manufacture and distribution of ceramic tableware. In this case Stubbs appears to have taken an oval section of earthenware from a previously manufactured Wedgwood dish, painted it with enamel, and then re-fired it. This experimental object led to a close collaboration between artist and potter, the latter beginning to make large earthenware plaques specifically for Stubbs to paint on, one of which is shown nearby.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022


This is the earliest of George Stubbs’s surviving enamels on ceramic. The presence of a Josiah Wedgwood stamp underneath suggests that the support was cut from a piece of commercially produced tableware and then refired. One of Paul Mellon’s most treasured paintings, he kept it on his desk in his Manhattan home.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016


This small enamel is the earliest of Stubbs's surviving paintings on ceramic supports made by Wedgwood. The presence of a Wedgwood stamp suggests that the support was cut from a Queen's Ware plate and was likely an experiment before Stubbs engaged Wedgwood to supply him with larger ceramic panels. This was one of Paul Mellon's most treasured paintings and sat on the desk in his study in Manhattan.

Gallery label for Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)


Crucially important as the earliest recorded example of Stubbs’s work in enamel on earthenware supports that were made and then fired in Josiah Wedgwood’s factory, this work predates Stubbs’s more ambitious compositions for larger-scale Wedgwood ceramic plaques of canvases, such as Reapers, also in the Yale Center for British Art’s collection. The oval plaque was cut with a grinder from the bottom of a Queen’s Ware plate, and Stubbs created the present work as an experiment with which to demonstrate the possibility and promise of painting in enamel on Wedgwood. Paul Mellon loved this painting and kept it on the desk of his study.

Gallery label for An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)
Crucially important as the earliest recorded example of Stubbs's work in enamel on earthenware supports that were made and then fired in Josiah Wedgwood's factory, this work predates Stubbs's more ambitious compositions for larger-scale Wedgwood ceramic plaques or "canvases." The position of the Wedgwood stamp, moreover, strongly suggests that the oval plaque was cut with a grinder from the bottom of a Queen's Ware plate and that Stubbs created the present work as an experiment with which to demonstrate (maybe to the manufacturer) the possibility and promise of painting in enamel on Wedgwood earthenware. In the 1770s distinctions among the various species of big cat were still rather vague, and the English word tiger was frequently used as a generic term to describe them all except lions. This is why the present work has plausibly been identified with the reference to a "sleeping tiger" in the artist's posthumous sale of 26 May 1807, despite the unequivocal spots. Paul Mellon loved this little painting and kept it on the desk in his study in the house he kept on East Seventieth Street in New York City.

Angus Trumble

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's legacy: a passion for British art : masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 253, no. 26, pl. 26, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Paul Mellon - A Cambridge Tribute (The Fitzwilliam Museum, 2007-06-12 - 2007-09-23) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Paul Mellon Bequest : Treasures of a Lifetime (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-02-17 - 2001-04-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: a Memorial Exhibition (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2000-02-14 - 2000-05-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: a Memorial Exhibition (Yale Center for British Art, 1999-04-30 - 1999-09-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Stubbs - An Exhibition in Honor of Paul Mellon (National Gallery of Art, 1985-04-11 - 1985-05-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

George Stubbs (1724-1806) Tate Gallery (Yale Center for British Art, 1985-02-13 - 1985-04-07) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

George Stubbs (1724-1806) Tate Gallery (Tate Britain, 1984-10-17 - 1985-01-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

David Alexander, Painters and Engraving: The Reproductive Print from Hogarth to Wilkie, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, p. 50, no. 100, NE631.2 .A43 (YCBA) [YCBA]

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 253, no. 26, pl. 26, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, George Stubbs in the collection of Paul Mellon : A memorial exhibition, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1999, p. 80, no. 61, NJ18 St915 G54 1999 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867 : A Catalogue : The Paul Mellon Collection, , Tate Publishing, London, 1978, pp. 90-91, no. 87, Colour Pl. 15, ND1383 G7 B75 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, 1724-1806, [exhibition] Tate Gallery. , Tate Publishing, London, 1984, p. 123, no. 86, NJ18 St915 E43 (YCBA) + [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, painter : catalogue raisonne, , Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2007, pp. 66-7, 406-8, no. 202, fig. 3, NJ18 St915 A12 +E44 2007 (YCBA) [YCBA]

George Stubbs as a Printmaker, Print Collector's Newsletter, September/October 1982, pp. 113-116, NE1 P76 OVERSIZE (HAAS) [ORBIS]

Alex Kidson, Earlier British paintings in the Walker Art Gallery and Sudley House, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2012, p. 173, fn 1, ND466 .K537 2012 (YCBA) [YCBA]

C. A. Lennox-Boyd, George Stubbs, the complete engraved works , Stipple, Warren Farm House, Culham, Abingdon, OX New York : Distributed b, 1989, NJ18 St915 A12 L45 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mr Paul Mellon, Reflections in a silver spoon, a memoir , W. Morrow, New York, 1992, p. 281, N5220 M552 1992 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Venetia Morrison, The art of George Stubbs, Wellfleet Press, Seacaucus, N.J., 1989, p. 145, NJ18 St915 M67 1989+ (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 3, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Duncan Robinson, Paul Mellon: a Cambridge tribute, , The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge [England], 2007, pp. 26-7, 50, N5220 M552 P36 2007 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Sleeping Leopard, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, June 1981, p. 192, J418 C65D (SML) [ORBIS]

Stubbs, an exhibition in honor of Paul Mellon : National Gallery of Art, 4 May-2 June 1985. , National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1985, pp. 7, 9, no. 29, V 0413 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Bruce Tattersall, A Sleeping Leopard by George Stubbs, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 118, No.885, December 1976, pp. 848-51, fig. 93, N1 B87 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Basil Taylor, Stubbs, Phaidon, London, 1975, uhy, fig. 12, NJ18 St915 T39 1975 (YCBA) + [YCBA]

Malcolm Warner, The Paul Mellon Bequest : treasures of a lifetime, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 19, N5247 M385 P28 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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